The Washing Of The Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879
Published by Pimlico,1994, softcover, 660 pages, index, condition: as new.Donald Morris delivers an account of the rise of the Zulu nation and its fall under Cetshwayo in the Zulu war of 1879. For more than a century after the European landing at Cape Town in the 17th century, the Boers had advanced unopposed into the vast interior of Africa. It was not until 1824 that Europeans came face to face with another expanding and imperial power, the Zulus, the most formidable nation in black Africa. That confrontation culminated in a bitter war between the Zulu warriors and Victoria's British Army. It was the last despairing effort of Africans to stem the tide of white civilization. The result was a dramatic, legendary and bloody defeat at Isandhlwana for the British; the aftermath was the defeat and fall of the Zulu nation. This work sets out to be not only a history of the Zulus but also a full-scale study of the British colonial and military policy in relation to southern Africa, and of those involved.
For a time all was quiet. Then a group of [Lieutenant Charles] Raws men saw a few Zulus herding a small group of cattle up a slope some distance ahead. Kicking up their horses, they gave chase. The slope was a full four miles from the head of the spur, and they were soon out of sight of [Captain Charles] Cavayes men and most of their companions. The Zulu herders ran over the crest of the slope and disappeared, and the cattle slowed on the rise and stopped. One of the pursuers cantered up beside them, and in sudden alarm pulled his horse up just in time to prevent a tumble over the edge of a wide, deep ravine that lay just beyond the rise. Then, in astonishment, he stared into the ravine itself. Closely packed and sitting in utter silence, covering the floor of the ravine and perched on the steeply rising sides, stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions, were over 20,000 Zulu warriors. The main impi had finally been located
- Donald R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation
